Quote from skizzerz >>

Quote from LunaticKnight >>

It's a shame to see this campaign end. I was looking forward to finding out who the Big Bad was (I was only half-hoping that it was Cthlulu), but hey, time management is important. I really liked how the mirrors and hands provided obstacles in an otherwise normal, very escapable enviroment. Nice touch, in my opinion. Anyways, thanks for the game, despite how short it was. I look forward to potentially playing with you all in different PbPs and whatnot.

 

Not a bad guess.

It was Hastur -- the only minor clue you got to that so far was the fact the spooky ghosty thing had yellow eyes, and Hastur is associated with the King in Yellow. There would have been more subtle clues as time went on, but nothing truly definitive. The goal was for thread 2 to piece together the disparate clues and red herrings to figure out what's really going on before too much bad things happened to thread 1 and wiped all of you out.

A long time in the past, Hastur's soul was split into 20 pieces and kept prisoner by the souls of mortals. One of their descendants would inherit this soul fragment upon birth. Should one die while holding a fragment inside of them, it is released and returned to Hastur. In the intervening time, 7 such fragments have been returned, leaving 13 still in mortal bodies. 7 was enough for Hastur to begin planning, however, and he arranged over centuries to collect the rest of the fragments in one place so he can finally be set free. Additionally, he managed to corrupt one of the still-living holders of a fragment and use him as a vessel. This person founded the Disciples of the Faith and is helping fast-track Hastur's plans to collect the 12 remaining souls. Those in thread 3 were contacted via dreams to join the Disciples, and were on an introductory mission to capture another person holding a fragment and perform a ritual to release it. Some if not all of the PC's in thread 1 also hold fragments inside of them.

While killing them is enough to restore power to Hastur, performing rituals on them while alive can unlock magic powers for the PCs in thread 3 and the cult in general, as it can imbue them with some of that power as well. In game terms, this is how the members of thread 3 would learn spellcasting, being able to do a wide variety of freaky effects (pretty much all of the spells would be homebrew and likely involve rituals to cast versus simply expending an action. The mirror/hands thing was an example of such a spell).

Only the upper echelons of the Disciples' leadership know of Hastur's true identity, they put on a front for everyone else that they are being contacted by the God of the Old Testament, who is especially vengeful due to sinners having locked his power away. This lets them lead initiates and acolytes to execute their plans without risking revealing exactly what is happening to the outside world. To further ensure safety, they do not initiate new members until they have been touched by Hastur via their dreams and therefore be less likely to defect. Thread 2's main goal was to pierce the veil the Disciples have been putting up and learn what is going on there -- their starting mission would have lead them to capturing someone at the middle of the totem pole, at first believing it to just be a human trafficking ring.

Thread 1's goal is simply to stay alive and not be captured as things seem to be literally out to get them. Everyone else (those who do not have soul fragments or have been touched by Hastur in their dreams) are unable to perceive the magic and other things happening to you, resulting in largely everyone you go to for help deriding you or thinking you mentally unstable. Until thread 2 makes their breakthrough, the police would have largely ignored you -- the recording Charlotte made would have been a great reveal in that regard. Any of you watching it would see the freaky stuff plain as day, but anyone else watching would just see a bunch of mirrors in a dark room, no hands, no glowy stuff. Eventually the plan was for threads 1 and 2 to combine and collaborate to take out the Disciples (by which point the PCs in thread 3 would likely be in the upper echelons if not the leaders), leading to a climactic final encounter.